


Forecasting Storms

by pureselfindulgence



Category: White Collar
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pureselfindulgence/pseuds/pureselfindulgence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter and Elizabeth's relationship has been strained by the events of late S4. Can they mend it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forecasting Storms

**Author's Note:**

> Written in a half-hour for the 3 Prompts and a Genre game at the Doin' it in DC fandom meetup. The genre was hurt/comfort, and the required words were _air_ , _art_ , and _hatred_.

Peter and Elizabeth stand in the hall outside Neal’s apartment, stiff and silent, while Neal stands just inside. Although he tries to feign nonchalance, there is an answering tension in his shoulders, betraying nerves aquiver, nearly at the snapping point. Their tangled emotions hang in the air, so thick that it suffocates all thought, all speech, all movement.

A car backfiring in the street outside breaks the tableau. Where all was still, there is instant response. El gasps. Peter reaches for a gun he is not wearing. And Neal flinches violently and starts to pull away.

As reality pours back over them, El reaches out automatically at Neal’s withdrawal, her face full of a mute pleading. She, normally so glib and assured in matters of the heart, still cannot find any words—because she has finally realized that she is the one who has ultimately brought them to this point.

Peter, Elizabeth…and Neal. The love between two was primal, deeply rooted, even more deeply essential—the underpainting in a work of art. But the love between three had been a masterpiece. And with the loss of that, as with the loss of any masterpiece, the world had been made poorer.

She doesn’t know how to fix it, and as Neal simply stares at her hand on his arm, she stares back at him. He is beautifully disheveled, his eyes wide and almost painfully blue in a pale, set face. Even at this moment, there is an ineffable grace to him…except that he is blurring in her sight.

The tears trickle quietly down her cheeks. Finally, it is the tiny sniff that she can’t quite repress, and Neal’s automatic wince, that spur Peter to act.

There is no finesse and no delicacy in his response. All at once, he reaches out and grabs for Neal, and pulls him into an abrupt embrace. Neal makes a move to resist, but Peter simply overpowers him. He is savage in his need, in his loss, and in his love—and he _will not_ let Neal go.

And El finds her own paralysis broken. With a sob, she wraps her arms around these two men…her loves, her lovers, her masterpiece.

“I’m so sorry, Neal,” she cries. “So sorry. We love you. Come back.”

As she clutches at them both, as if she is trying to force them all back together by main strength, she can feel Neal sag in surrender against their bodies. His arms creep up, tentatively, to encircle them both. 

At long last, they stand wrapped in each other’s arms once again, breathing together, drinking each other in with all their senses while El’s sobs gradually subside. They stand as if they will literally never separate again.

And for Peter and Elizabeth, at least, there is hope that everything can be mended, that soon all will be right with their world again. Their view from the landing is hopeful…

But as Neal stares over their shoulders, he can see a cloud looming behind them, and because he can’t resist his love, or his need for Peter and Elizabeth, he closes his eyes to shut the cloud out.

Yet even in the darkness, he can see the hatred of Curtis Hagen.


End file.
